Citizens Justice Committee

What it was: The Citizens Justice Committee (CJC) was formed in June 1985 to represent the Sikh victims of the November 1984 Ghallughara in Delhi before the Misra Commission, the inquiry set up by the Government of India. Ensaaf's report Twenty Years of Impunity lists its members as Justice S. M. Sikri, a retired Chief Justice of India, V. M. Tarkunde, a former Bombay High Court judge, the senior advocate Soli J. Sorabjee, Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh (retd) and Lieutenant General J. S. Aurora (retd).

Who led it: Harvinder Singh Phoolka was its convener and represented it in the Commission's proceedings. Ensaaf calls him the lead attorney for the victims.

Key moments

• 9 July 1985: the Misra Commission invited affidavits and the CJC approached it. By an order of 29 July 1985 the Commission recognised the CJC as the victims' representative body. It accepted other civil society groups but rejected the applications of PUDR and PUCL to take part.
• The Commission received 2,905 affidavits about Delhi, 675 about Kanpur and 172 about Bokaro and Chas.
• The Commission decided to hold its inquiry in camera and told the press not to report it. When the CJC asked for copies of the affidavits, the Union of India replied on 29 November 1985 that they should not be revealed, citing a "rising wave of terrorism", and the Commission refused.
• 27 January 1986: the Commission began examining witnesses in Delhi, 15 months after the killings. Ensaaf says it let the government cross-examine survivors but did not let the victims' representatives cross-examine the officials it summoned.
• 31 March 1986: the CJC withdrew from the proceedings. It said it could not see the affidavits and so could not test the Investigating Agency's report or the witnesses, that it had asked the Commission to summon nine officials but was not told when five of them were examined, and that it could not represent the victims in a closed-door inquiry with documents withheld.
• August 1987: the Ahooja committee used the lists of the Delhi Administration, the CJC and the BJP to put the official count of the dead in Delhi at 2,733.

Where it stands: Ensaaf thanked the CJC in 2006 for survivor affidavits, and says Phoolka had put online the papers in his possession from the Commission. The sources we opened do not say when the CJC stopped working or whether it still exists.